The Strokes

Julian Casablancas, Nick Valensi, and Fab Moretti met at the Dwight School in New York. After school they'd hang out together, playing in a makeshift band. Another of Julian's friends, Nikolai Fraiture (who went to New York's French school) joined up with them. The group was disrupted when Julian was sent away to a boarding school in Switzerland. The hope was that the lack of any distractions would help his grades. While away in Switzerland Julian recruited another band member - the guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr.

On the pair's return to NY, the band (plus one) was reformed. Soon they were playing live in small venues around the city. In 2001 came their first recording, an EP entitled The Modern Age. Containing 3 brilliant tracks, it created a significant buzz amongst garage rock fans.

The band's debut album Is This It hit the streets in 2001. The record was enormously successful, garnering huge publicity, and generating an enormous fan-base for the band. The year following the record's release was spent on tour, performing numerous shows across the US, Europe, Japan and Australia.

The next album from the band, Room On Fire, came out in 2003. It was perhaps not as musically strong as the first (but that's the downside of starting out with such an incredibly high standard).

2005 saw the release of their third album, First Impressions of Earth. The record entered the charts at #4 in the US, #1 in the UK. Through the next 18 months, the band continued their heavy live schedule, which encompassed a US tour, a UK tour, and a multitude of festival appearances.